The next frontier

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – That’s a mouthful, but it's got a nice history behind it. Fortunately the people here just refer to this lovely colonial town as San Cristobal (http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0601/sancristobal.html),.

The second part of the name is noteworthy. It comes from Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican monk and bishop of the Chiapas state from the mid-to-late 1500s, who fought much of his life to preserve the rights of Mexico’s indigenous population. Learn more about him here: http://www.lascasas.org/. Still interested? The city was also one of the launching points of the Zapatista rebellion in 1994, http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/mike/mexico1994.htm.

I also came here because I heard it’s beautiful and colonial and it’s less than four hours away from the Guatemalan border. This is my last stop in Mexico. Tomorrow I’m hoping to make it as far as Antigua, Guatemala, but I’ll have to find a bus to the border, probably get across the border on foot, then find a bus terminal that will hopefully have what I’m looking for. I meant to get to the bus station today to figure this out, but it’s been raining like hell.

I thought sweat would be the theme of my trip but so far it’s been the rain. Day plans got wrecked in Mexico City and Oaxaca as well because the rain just wouldn’t stop. The metro rail actually flooded one day after I left Mexico City, http://mexicometro.org/news/. Then some Bolivian religious extremist hijacked an airplane and landed it in the Distrito Federal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8247472.stm), but I don’t think it had anything to do with it being the rainy season.

I always miss the crazy stuff it seems, except for that time a terrorist strangled me eight years ago (http://bamaragua.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-relation-to-suspected-american.html). I got an email from Andrea Elliott of The New York Times after the Press-Register reported on my incident with Omar Hammami. I actually thought the PR article was kind of weak, so I'm not going to bother posting it, but more importantly, you heard correct, I was interviewed by The New York Times. I set up a time in Oaxaca to call Ms. Elliott in a wooden phone booth at a calling center a few blocks down from the hostel I shared with my Australians. A gave the reporter's cell phone number to the woman at the front desk, who then dialed it and told me to wait in the phone booth. Once Ms. Elliott (notice my clever use of NY Times-style attribution on second reference) answered on speaker phone, the woman motioned for me to pick up the phone in my booth and it transferred. I've made a lot of international calls, and none have ever been that complicated. It was actually a fun interview, we spoke for maybe 30 minutes, and we talked everything from terrorism to Arby's roast beef sandwiches. Her article on Omar should run sometime in the next few days.

It’s incredibly cold here in San Cristobal. I don’t know what the current temperature is, but I was chilly even at lunchtime. I didn’t pack a jacket because I expected things to only get hotter after Monterrey, but it has been the opposite. The farther south I go the colder it gets. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this that I don’t feel like looking up right now, but I won’t complain about how cold I am. I know the heat is going to find me somewheres.

The one thing I have done today is visited the barber. Even sitting down this old man had to stand on his toes to cut the hair at the very top of my enormous skull (seriously, I can’t even wear hats), but I think he did a good job. He actually cut the sides and back first, and took his time. I decided he was prepping himself for the hike to the top. The barber shop is just one door down from the Hotel Villa Real, my haunt for the last two nights. It’s not bad for $23 (U.S.) a night. I have a TV with no remote, a shower with no shower curtain and free wireless Internet that can only be picked up in the garden, where it’s raining, and I’m forced to type this in Word at a rickety old desk. It’s only a few blocks up from the travelers’ scene, where I was surprised to find small narrow streets lined with restaurant after bar after café after hotel after souvenir shop in all directions.

I had gone out last night to find a bar where I could watch Mexico play Honduras in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. I settled on a Cuban-themed bar named Revolucion where all the tables and chairs had been put in rows facing the big screen TV. It got packed after the first half, neither Mexico nor Honduras had scored, and it was getting tense. Sometime around the 80-minute mark Cuahtemoc Blanco scored on a penalty kick and the bar erupted. People ran in from the street to hear the news and see the replay. Mexico would win 1-0 and the crowd celebrated.

Why can’t we have this in the United States? Our team is in the lead right now in the World Cup qualifier standings for our division, which includes Mexico, ranked second. Come on people.

This is probably my last post from Mexico, and I’m sad to leave it behind. I had high expectations, but I think Mexico beat them. Despite its struggle with poverty and political strife, and it's occasionally tense cultural relationship with gringos, there are few places I’ve gone where the people have been so proud, hospitable and understanding of foreigners. I have only rarely felt alone here, making good friends in Guadalajara and in Mexico City. Ah, my sweet Australians. They sang me an Aussie drinking song at a Lucha Libre-themed bar in Oaxaca our last night together. Some Belgians we met that night also sang a drinking song of theirs to honor me, but I don’t speak Freedom. I mean French. The Australian one went something like:

“Here’s to brother Mike, brother Mike, brother Mike.
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
He’s happy, he’s jolly, he’ll skull* this by golly!
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
So skull mother(lover), skull mother(lover), skull…”

*skull = chug

I continue to be amazed at how I’d never come here before and how I don’t even have room on this blog for everything that has actually happened in the last 26 (or 27?) days.

My experiences here are just preparation for what’s to come. I’m on my way to four more countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) and now have less than a month to arrive in Granada. I’m going to rest up tonight and take off tomorrow. It’ll probably be a few days before you hear from me again. Take care.